Witch Hunt (13 page)

“What do you think of all this, Helena?” Leigh asked.

“All what?”

“The fact that you work for a family of accused witches.”

“Well, it’s no surprise to me.”

“Oh, you knew, then?”

Helena smiled a beautiful, slow smile “Well, very often it takes one to know one.”

Sergeant Tom Cosworth of the Montvue Police Department wasn’t surprised when the phone call came in. He had read the morning newspaper.

“Is this the head honcho, the biggest cheese?” a man’s voice asked when Cosworth picked up the phone.

Cosworth scratched his ample belly and relit his tired cigar. He was alone in the cop shop at the moment, and didn’t much care for the non-smoking rules. “Well, Lieutenant Brody is the watch commander, but he’s unavailable right now. I’m Sergeant Cosworth. What do you need?”

“This is Dr. Craig Hawthorne of the Hawthorne Witch Club. I assume you’ve heard of our respected organization.”

Cosworth chuckled. “Yep, your PR department’s done a bang-up job.”

“So, would you understand it if I said that our teeth are chattering and our knees are knocking?”

Cosworth chewed on his cigar butt. “Yep, I would.”

“Can the distinguished men — and women, of course — in blue, or whatever color you’re wearing these days, make like the cavalry?”

“Well, Dr. Hawthorne, there’s not a whole lot we can do at this stage of the game.”

“Does the preacher man have a permit?”

“Doesn’t need one.”

“Doesn’t need one? You need a permit to take a piss in this goddamn country! What do you mean, doesn’t need one?”

Cosworth sighed. “If he doesn’t block free travel into and around your home, he doesn’t need one.”

“Isn’t there a law prohibiting this sort of ballyhoo in front of a man’s private castle?”

Cosworth tapped an ash into the pot of the plant on his desk. “Well, they can’t carry picket signs and they can’t tell the neighborhood kids things like you murder babies, but, yep, they can gather to save your soul.”

“
My goddamn soul is just fine, thank you!
”

Cosworth really didn’t blame the doctor for giving him an earache. “You could all just go somewhere else tonight. Not be there.”

“Would you turn tail and run?”

“Not me. This is America.”

“Says it all, doesn’t it?”

The phone receiver went dead in Cosworth’s ear. “Poor bastard,” he muttered, and then he relit the dying ember on the end of his cigar.

The guest cottage that served as Dorian’s and Glynis’s home was located just inside the south gate of Hawthorne Manor. It was small but cozy, and Craig had always been more comfortable there than in the big house. With its bright chintz curtains, simple overstuffed furniture, and scattering of homey knickknacks, it was a warm and inviting place. The only telling influence of the Hawthornes’ wealth was the original Norman Rockwell painting that hung on the living room wall.

“His allergies and asthma are really bad.” Glynis led Craig and Kamelia into the bedroom where Dorian lay. “When he gets excited or nervous he has troubles. I’ve put the houseplants back outside, and I’ve been keeping the windows closed. I even had Marek put a new filter in the air conditioner. But nothing is helping.”

“How ya doing, you old fart?” Craig sat on the edge of Dorian’s bed.

“Don’t like being old.”

Craig nodded. “It’s a bitch, ain’t it? But, one of the cool things about our heritage is that our aging slows as we creep forward.”

“That, my dear boy, is both a blessing and a curse.”

Craig pulled his stethoscope out of his bag, placed it on Dorian’s chest, and listened to his noisy bronchi. “Rock, rattle, and roll.” He took Dorian’s temperature and examined his glands and throat. “Aunt Glynis’s diagnosis hits the nail on the head. Best thing you can do is rest. Try to sleep.”

“Sleep?” Dorian asked, his voice croaky. “With that crazy preacher breathing down our throats? He’ll be here in just a few hours. How can I sleep?”

Kamelia pulled some small blue cloth bags out of her pocket and handed one to Dorian. “Here’s an amulet. Melanie, Jason, and I made them. It’ll help protect you.”

Dorian took it and immediately began to sneeze and cough. He thrust it back at her. “Herbs in it. Can’t handle it right now.”

Kamelia’s face reddened, and she stuffed them back into her jeans. “I … I didn’t think. Sorry.”

Craig grasped Kamelia’s hands and gave them a comforting squeeze, then placed them on Dorian’s solar plexus. He put his own hands on his uncle’s head, and within moments he could feel the connection of his and Kamelia’s energies as they coursed through Dorian’s body.

Dorian tensed at first, and then began to relax. “Oh, yes. Nice.”

“This’ll mellow you out and start the fences mending.” Craig watched Dorian’s face relax. He loved and respected the old man who had given his all for love. It was a story Craig heard as a small boy from his grandmother, Beatrice, during one of her many wine-sotted tirades. The story of Glynis’s and Dorian’s romance, and the violence his grandfather used to try to derail it, was one of the many reasons Craig had chosen to go his own way in life.

“Will he be better now?” Glynis asked. Her arthritic fingers struggled to tuck a stray lock back up into the hairnet that held her silver hair.

Craig nodded. “He needs some
Z
’s. Let’s make back to the Land of Oz for now and leave him be.”

“Yes, the Wicked Witch of the West is waiting.” Glynis dissolved into giggles, her hand hiding her mouth.

Craig stood up and put an arm around her frail shoulders. “Oh, dear, I see I’m having a nasty influence on the home front.”

“You’re like a breath of fresh air, Craig. A breath of fresh air.”

Together, Craig, Glynis, and Kamelia walked back to the mansion. On the way, Craig held Glynis’s hand and sent healing energy into her arthritic joints.

Preacher Cody’s handsome face stared out at the Hawthornes from their television set.

“And Paul warned of this when he told the Galatians, ‘This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.

“‘Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these: adultery, fornication, uncleanliness, lasciviousness.’” As Cody spoke these lines from the Bible, the television screen cut to a visual collage of sexual images backed by a pulsing, rhythmic musical score.

Then the screen flashed to gory photographs of a black mass and ritual murder, and the soundtrack shifted to heavy metal. “‘Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies.’”

Finally, there was a montage of ghetto street violence, backed by a rap song. “‘Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like, of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.’”

Preacher Cody returned to the screen, this time in an outdoor setting. He was dressed in blue jeans, a western-style shirt, a cowboy hat, and boots. He stood in a grassy field with a beautiful white mare and her newborn foal. His piercing blue eyes looked directly into the camera. “God has spoken to me again, my friends. The first time He spoke to me was in the Afghani desert, when He told me to speak to His people of the end times. That I have done. Then He spoke to me again last week, very near to the place I’m now standing, in a plane crash that should have taken my life. But He saved me so that I could warn you about one of the sins of the flesh that threatens to insinuate itself into our Christian lives and steal from us our faith and ultimate salvation.” The screen returned to the scenes of the black mass. “Witchcraft. The abomination of witchcraft.” Suddenly the photographs of the black mass became animate, and the gore and horror of the ritual sacrifice being played out came to life, replete with horrified screams from the young children who were sacrificial victims and devilish laughter of the perpetrators. “Ah, but these witches are subtle. They’ve tried to whitewash our thinking so that most of us, in our twenty-first century sophistication, don’t even believe in them.” Cuts of childish, fairy-tale versions of cartoon witches became interspersed with the shots of ritual murder. The alternating scenes began to speed up until, with a loud crescendo of heavy metal noise, they merged. The final scene was an overlay: the pretty, blue-eyed blond child character, Tabitha, from the television show
Bewitched
had conjured up the Tooth Fairy, while, in the overlay, a little blond girl, whose throat was cut, was having her teeth pulled out for use as charms by members of a Satanic coven.

The camera returned to Cody, who had been joined by his angelic-looking wife and baby daughter, both dressed in flowing white dresses that moved gently in the wind. The lilting sounds of a flute, with a soft bongo backbeat, filled the airwaves.

“We need to protect ourselves, and our loved ones, from the growing menace of evil that these witches pose. The signs of their presence are all around us.” The song “Age of Aquarius” accented a photographic montage of newspaper astrology columns, Tarot card readers, occult shops, and New Age publications.

“Eradicating these obvious Satanic influences from our Christian society is only the first step. Because then it gets more subtle. Beware the false prophets!” Eerie chanting began, and pictures of East Indian gurus flashed on the screen.

“And last of all are the witches who lurk in our midst in disguise.” The lovely Samantha Stephens and the theme song from
Bewitched
played. Preacher Cody’s voice became soft and seductive. “Beware the witches who might be your next door neighbors …”

The sun set over the mountains as Preacher Cody, his wife, and daughter basked in the bright love of God and each other.

The screen faded to black.

Melanie shook her head. “And so it begins again.”

“You might as well kiss your liberty, and probably your sweet ass, good-bye,” Craig said.